Separation of thumb and avatar

The very first thing that the wife and I did after we’d tallied up our wedding presentation was to go out and purchase a massive new television. That was two and a half years ago, and it’s served me well over time.

The TV has one little issue though: it doesn’t play entirely nice with old video game consoles. They will hook up and display and everything, but they suffer for a noticeable input lag. This quirk is common to all HDTVs as far as I’m aware, so why is it worth talking about? Because my TV has a “game” setting that works really well for eliminating that lag, but it has a major flaw when used on an input that’s coming through normal composite cables, the very kind that an N64 or PS1 would use.

Everything seems fine at first when you set the input’s video setting to “game.” It’s displaying properly, the sound is coming out fine, and the input lag is gone. But then, suddenly, a massive wave of rainbow-coloured noise washed over the screen. It only lasts a second, but it happens every 15-20 seconds, so it’s a little annoying. It’s also much more distracting than it sounds.

Up until last month, I lived perfectly fine with the input lag. Oh, sure, it’s a little annoying, but most of the time it’s not a huge deal. It’s not like I play any rhythm or otherwise timing-sensitive games on my N64. But then Donkey Kong 64 happened along. Several of its mini-games and challenges flummoxed me hard. They were seemingly impossible to beat, the most maddeningly frustrating gaming experiences that I’d had in ages.

Yet I didn’t recall the game being so overly difficult. What happened? Input lag. You might call me crazy, but when I started switching the video mode from “normal” to “game” every time a mini-game popped up, DK64 became a much smoother, more bearable experience. Even the stupid Beaver Bother mini-game, a mini-game which I truly believe was forged in the depths of Hell, went from impossibly hard to a mild annoyance. My aggravation subsided, and I was free to finish the game.

If you’d told me a couple months ago that input lag could have such a profound effect on a single-player 3D platformer, I would have called you nuts. The fact of the matter is that it completely changed my Donkey Kong 64 experience. When your controls are slowed by even half a second, it makes so many elements of the game so much more difficult than they actually are. Having to deal with the stupid noise wipe was nothing at all compared to the trouble caused by the lag. Funny thing is, I haven’t come across any other games that it hampers quite so badly. Um Jammer Lammy and Jet Force Gemini are just as difficult with or without any lag, and pretty much every other game has worked just fine.

The moral of today’s story? I guess it’s that I need to pick up an old standard definition TV to play my really old video games on. And then find somewhere to put that TV, since there really isn’t a big enough spot anywhere in my home to accommodate yet another gaming setup.

Oh, or I could just never play Donkey Kong 64 again. That’s probably the right thing to do. Because really, eff that mess.

On Mushroom Men and Checkpoints

I played The Last Of Us last month. I noted in the Monthend Wrap-Up that I wasn’t overly fond of it. That’s really only half the story though. Or maybe about a third of it. Because there’s a lot to like about the game! It’s just that the parts I didn’t like were so aggravating that it soured my opinion of the entire experience, which is completely opposite of how I usually roll.

Normally I’m able to overlook rough patches in games or movies or what-have-you and come out enjoying the product on the whole. I think it’s a good philosophy, as it lets me enjoy more things, and I spent less time sounding like a douchey nerd, complaining about stupid little things in an otherwise likeable product.

Like I said before, there are plenty of things about The Last Of Us that I liked. The story, for instance. At first glance, it’s just another stupid zombie game. But then you notice that the more dangerous zombies have mushrooms growing out of their heads. That’s… unusual? Because they are not affected by some silly man-made chemical or evil space-dust. These zombies are people who have been parasitized by cordyceps fungus. Which is a real Goddamn thing. Only in real life it doesn’t affect humans. Just bugs and possibly plants. I don’t know, I didn’t research it enough. But it’s spooky because it’s real and not totally outside the spectrum of plausibility. This is possibly the finest excuse for zombies that anyone has ever come up with.

The characters are also quite likeable. Joel, maybe not so much. He’s a gruff badass who eventually learns to open his heart, which is the stockingest character there is. Ellie, on the other hand, is his 14-year-old companion, and she is effing great. Yes, she’s an obnoxious teenager, but she’s a lovable kind of obnoxious teenager. Not the most original character either, but she’s written very well, and it’s a shame any time the two get split up. The only reason that I didn’t write off Joel completely is because they play off each other perfectly. A lot of the secondary characters are great too, even though they only stick around for a couple hours each.

The Last Of Us features some very nice stealth-based gameplay. Many encounters can be won by sneaking around all quiet-like and dispatching your enemies (with a good old fashioned choke) one by one. Sometimes you can even sneak your way through an area without killing anyone. And there are plenty of options for when you do want to kill people. You can throw trash around to distract them, or bonk them on the head with a bottle to stun them while you rush up to finish them off. Maybe you just want to lay down a home-made bomb as a trap, or toss a smoke bomb to cover your escape. It’s all quite wonderful, and if the entire game was just these stealth sections, I’d be over the moon.

But it’s not. Every once in a while, the game forces you into a shootout. If you mess up at being sneaky, you’re going to have to reset or finish the encounter with bullets. Sometimes you’ll just be automatically thrust into a firefight with bandits, or the zombies will just inexplicably know that you’re there and rush you all at once. Even worse, is when you meticulously clear out an area with stealth kills, and then trip an invisible event trigger that spawns a dozen enemies in that exact same area that you then have to fight with guns and fists. Those ones are the absolute worst, and they very nearly ruined the entire game for me.

In the early game at least, you have two options when you’re forced to fight zombies. You can try to melee them. This is a waste of time, because while you’re wailing away on one zombie (who will take 4-5 punches to kill), his six or seven friends are tearing you a new one. There are melee weapons laying about here and there, but they’re only a little more effective than your fists, and even then they’re only good for a handful of attacks before they break. Eventually you’ll have home-made bombs, too, but they’re much more useful to lay as traps while you’re in a stealth combat sequence.

Guns are a bit of a wash, too. Not only is it incredibly hard to aim (you can upgrade your aim wiggle, but it costs a small fortune in upgrade pills), but the zombies are brilliant at dodging about as they race towards you. They can’t tell the difference between your flashlight and natural light, but they’re incredibly adept at juking around to dodge your bullets. Yeah, sure. That’s a bit of a stretch there, guys. You don’t get very many bullets either, but that’s a feature that I can live with, and even sort of appreciate, having spent so much of my teen years with Resident Evil games.

There’s apparently a DLC pack for the game that includes the “Grounded” difficulty, which not only makes enemies stronger, but removes the HUD and your ability to sense nearby enemies, and slims the amount of scavengable resources down to the bare minimum. I won’t pay for this mode, but I have to assume that it’s literally impossible. A lack of bullets will be worse than ever since trying to shoot anything in this game is already a major pain, and melee combat is almost completely useless on the normal difficulty. I can imagine that you’ll play up until the first time you come upon a forced zombie fight, and then the game is over because there’s no way to win. It’s a terrible joke from the developers, and you have to pay them to suffer it.

So I guess that what I’m getting at is that I’d like for The Last Of Us to be more like Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. In fact, it’s already an awful lot like Shattered Memories, but I’d love it to pieces if it traded in all the shooty sections for running away and stealth times. It would flip my opinion of the game right around, and I’d start to understand why it’s been almost universally praised. As it is though, it’s just another humdrum third-person shooter with a really great story and occasionally a really fun gameplay sequence.

Grasping at straws

I’m not going to lie, I feel like the Fourteen Stupid Ryan “Facts” post that I ran a couple weeks ago is probably the best and most creative thing that I’ve written in years. And it’s barely even a complete idea.

It’s a clever (funny?) thing on its own; that it was preceded by a list of actual facts really made it shine. And now I have this sinking feeling that I’ll never be able to write anything anywhere near as inspired. I don’t even know where the inspiration for it came from. For once in my life, ideas just rolled out of my head, as opposed to how I usually just take something I like that someone else did and twist it into something I can claim as my own.

Even if they weren’t actually a “smart” or “good” or “funny” pair of posts, the fact remains that it was far more fun to write them than anything else that I’ve written in quite some time.

Anyway, I guess the point is that now I’m depressed that I’m an idiot who can only have an original idea by accident.

I have Super Smash Bros on 3DS now

Posting is probably going to slow down/come to a complete stop for a while.

That’s what I’d usually say, except for I’ve got a bunch of pre-written posts lined up for the next couple weeks. Thank goodness for WordPress!

So yeah, business as usual. Some things you read may be out-of-date though, as I wrote the bulk of October’s posts in September.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: September 2014

Hey, it’s the best month of the year! And a month where I decided that it was time to focus on a select few games instead of trying to play everything under the sun. These Monthend posts really shouldn’t go over 1,000 words.

Anyway, final vacation week of the year, and I… spent most of if watching TV and sleeping in instead of playing games or doing something productive. Oh well!

Oh, and I guess this marks the first year anniversary of this Monthend feature. I figured I would’ve flaked on it long ago.

~ Now Playing ~

Super Smash Bros for 3DS Demo (3DS) – Okay, so it’s weird to be counting a demo here, but how many demos have you played for over 6 hours? Yeah. Besides, I got the special version without a usage limit (the regular version can only be launched 30 times), so I need to tout that as much as I can.

Gauntlet (PC) – The only PC game that I’ve ever pre-ordered. I played Legends and Dark Legacy so much back in the day that I was thrilled to hear that a new game was on the way. The final product is really good; pure Gauntlet. The only problem is that the mouse/keyboard control scheme feels weird and it doesn’t support either of my usual PC controllers. I’ve cleared the first world so far.

Hyrule Warriors (WiiU) – I have never played a Warriors game before, so while this game is dressing up a stale series in fanservice to many, it’s a completely new experience for me. And it’s soooo much fun. It shouldn’t be, but it is. I’ve finished Legend Mode, but that’s really just scratching the surface of this game’s content.

Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS) – I have a very hard time playing any tactical RPG that isn’t Final Fantasy Tactics, so I’ve never been too interested in Fire Emblem. Picked this one up because it was on sale, and I’m loving it. Possibly because I’m playing on normal difficulty and casual mode, so I don’t have to deal with Fire Emblem’s traditionally crushing difficulty and perma-death. It’s breezy and fun, but I still have to consider my moves carefully. Hooray! I’m on Chapter 18 or so.

The Last of Us (PS3) – I’m one of the few who didn’t love this game. I don’t often agree with Chris Kohler these days, but he’s absolutely right when he suggested that it would be better without guns. I like the game in general, but I absolutely hate it when it forces you into combat. Because the combat is terrible. It might have the most satisfying stealth gameplay I’ve ever experienced, but it usually forgoes the stealth in favour of gunplay. Boo.

~ Game Over ~

Donkey Kong 64 (N64) – I loved DK64 for many years, but playing it again was sort of an eye-opener, as at the outset, I felt like I was having quite a bit of fun with it. Then things took a horrible turn. Read this for more details.

Hammerwatch (PC) – I got confused and thought that Gauntlet game came out on the 3rd, but actually it was the 23rd. Luckily, Hammerwatch came along in a Humble Bundle and slaked my thirst for a dungeon-crawling hack-em-up. Essentially it’s you (and up to three friends) in a massive series of mazes against millions of squishy monsters. Plenty of secrets to discover and winks at classic PC games made this one really stand out. I look forward to playing it again -and more thoroughly- to get the good ending.

Tappingo 2 (3DS) – Hey it’s the sequel to that puzzle game that wasn’t super but was somehow very engrossing anyway. So I played this. Solved some puzzles. It was pretty much the exact same as the first one, and that’s probably the only trait it shares with picross.

Metal Gear (MSX) – So here’s an odd one. I’ve never played an MSX game before. Turns out that Metal Gear is pretty great. Aside from a lot of totally unintuitive tricks and traps, anyway. But the overall feel I got from the game was good, so I hopped into Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake immediately after finishing it.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (MSX) – It’s even better than the first! Who would have thought! Literally the only things I didn’t like about it are the enormous amount of backtracking and the stupid, stupid swamp. If you’ve played the game, you know what I’m talking about.

Saints Row the Third (PC) – Despite almost burning out by ignoring the story and just goofing of and playing with all the random distractions, I powered through to the end. With 100% even, because I loved it. Really wish that I was capable to keeping an aircraft intact for more than about a minute, though. Flying is really fun, but I am not good at it.

Demon King Box (3DS) – Finished it off, and was a bit shocked when I did, because the ending just comes out of nowhere. Possibly because the translation is awful and none of the dialogue makes a lick of sense. There are a bunch of tough post-game stages to play, but I don’t know if I like the game that much.

Life Force (NES) – Bought this VC game on a whim, because I thought I heard that it’s a little easier than most other space shooters. That’s not exactly true. I couldn’t even pass the first stage after playing for fifteen minutes. So I save-stated my way to the end. Good enough.

Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii) – I spent a ton of time with Brawl in anticipation of Smash on 3DS. Partly to get myself psyched up, and partly to try to complete all of the challenges I left unfinished. I didn’t clear out everything, but I’m pretty close. I’ve just accepted the fact that I’ll never beat Boss Battles on the Very Hard or Insane difficulties.

~ Re-runs ~

Picross e2 (3DS) – Oh look, Ryan was playing Picross. What a surprise.

Year of N64 – September – Donkey Kong 64

I have played Donkey Kong 64 to 101% completion at least twice in my lifetime. Possibly even three times, but I can only clearly remember the two. I have fond memories of the game, recalling only a single instance -a mini-game, at that- that caused me fits of frustration. However, in 2014, Donkey Kong 64 seems like nothing but an exercise in frustration.

I’m getting a little ahead of myself there, though. If you’re not familiar with it, Donkey Kong 64 is a 3D platformer developed by Rare. Playing it again, I couldn’t help but feel like it’s more a sequel to Banjo-Kazooie than any previous Donkey Kong game. The mechanics are the same, the games feel the same, even the music is incredibly similar. Both games are packed to the gills with collectible doo-dads.

The big difference, and what works in Banjo-Kazooie’s favour, is that BK only has one playable character. Well, two, but they’re eternally bonded together (at least until the sequel). Donkey Kong 64 has five playable characters, and as such, you need to scour each stage (and the hub!) five times to collect each one’s differently-coloured set of items. Yes, each Kong has a unique set of skills, but Banjo and Kazooie had just as many skills crammed into one character. It feels like having multiple characters is just a smokescreen, making it seem like there’s more to the game than there actually is.

The character-switching isn’t a major gripe though. There are much more pressing and infuriating matters at hand here. Firstly, Donkey Kong 64 has what must be the most openly antagonistic camera in all of video games. It’s not the worst in outdoor environments, but indoors, it basically refuses to ever be in the right place because it cannot deal with walls. It does not pan freely, but rather it always moves in chunks, and is never, ever right behind the player. This makes precision platforming much harder than it needs to be, especially with the somewhat loose controls. Even worse, is that the camera does not stay fixed at the angle you choose, and will start floating all over as soon as you start moving. I’m sure it’s intentionally trying to make me miss jumps.

Camera management woes aside, the game was pretty smooth out of the gate. Everything was going well for the first two worlds. I was collecting bananas, learning new abilities, rescuing fellow Kongs, trampling bosses. It was all well and good. Then came world three. In this world, you’re given the opportunity to play the original Donkey Kong arcade game. In fact, you have to beat it to win a golden banana. This was a pain in the butt, as you only get one life, and when you lose it, you get booted all the way out of the game. If it even just sent you back to the title screen, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but each time you die, it’s a good thirty seconds until you start your next run.

Donkey Kong isn’t terribly difficult for an arcade game. I managed to win after about half an hour. But then you have to play it again. With increased difficulty (more fireballs, DK throws barrels at different angles, etc). This is where it becomes a truly massive pain, as round two seems to be simply to win a unique kajigger. It’s not until the very end of the game, though, that you’re informed that you need this kajigger to fight the final boss. Thanks, Rare. You’re kind of a dick.

Not all the collectibles are quite so bad, though. Each stage has a whopping 500 small bananas to collect, 100 for each Kong. Luckily, you’re awarded a banana medal for collecting only 75 of each colour, and only the medals count towards your game clear percentage, so you don’t have to go out of your mind tracking down each and every one. Of course, if you’re not playing to 101%, it’s not an issue anyway. Also, collecting 15 banana medals unlocks Rare’s classic arcade game, Jetpac, which is a bit more fun than Donkey Kong. You have to win another unique thingamajig from Jetpac. It’s not easy, but it’s much less of a hassle to earn that one.

There are 25 golden bananas (the game’s main collectible) in each stage, 5 to be found by each Kong. Most of the golden bananas are earned by completing a challenge or making use of a Kong’s skill. Sometimes, though, you’ll also have to win a mini-game to get your banana. Some are just boring and simple, like one where you have to win a slot machine several times or collect a handful of coins in a small maze. Some are actually pretty fun, like the one where you have to pilot a minecart around a track while avoiding other, more explosive minecarts. And then there’s Beaver Bother.

Beaver Bother is a mini-game in which you play as a Klaptrap tasked with herding a number of Gnawtys into a hole. Sounds simple. You run around and bark at the beavers, and they fall in. Or, that’s how it’s supposed to work. In reality, the beavers are way smarter than they should be, and are able to consistently run up against the edge of the hole and not fall in, as if there’s an invisible railing around it. Sometimes they do fall in, though. I don’t know what triggers it. The game seems to run entirely on luck, and it took me forever to win each of the four instances of this stupid game. There’s another one, Big Bug Bash, where you’re a flyswatter and you… swat flies. It’s a little tedious too, but that’s just because the flies are quick and unpredictable, not because the game seems fundamentally broken.

It should be noted that the first time you play Beaver Bother is in world three.

Also, for whatever reason, my game did not save properly after I completed world three, resulting in me losing a couple hours of progress. I was almost ready to throw in the towel after that. I’m sure it’s not the game’s fault or anything, but it sure didn’t ameliorate my already soured opinion of it.

I need to stop to say a nice thing about the game here. And that’s that I love the music. It takes a few cues from some more iconic Donkey Kong Country tracks, but then just spins off and ends up sounding mostly like Banjo-Kazooie. Which is just fine, because Banjo-Kazooie has a terrific soundtrack. I always enjoy Grant Kirkhope’s work.

Despite all the things that tried to hard to frustrate me to the point of quitting, I powered through and completed Donkey Kong 64 yet again. Like, to 101%. I know, I’m a little crazy. The pain was softened by a cheat for unlimited resources like ammo  banana coins, and crystal coconuts (which power special abilities). This cheat had been unlocked by a previous save file, and I had no qualms with using it to make my life a little easier this time around. Of course, it didn’t help me with the more frustrating parts of the game, but at least I never had to worry about running out of thingamabobs.

The final verdict is that no, Donkey Kong 64 is not a good game in 2014. I could have defended it in 1999, when most other games were even worse, but it hasn’t got a leg to stand on any longer. I would really like to see a modernized remake that fixes the camera and controls, redoes or replaces the mini-games, and otherwise sands down the other rough edges. Because this is a game I’d like to be able to like. The fact of the matter is that you’re much better off playing the Banjo-Kazooie port on XBLA if you’re jonesing for some Rare-style 3D platforming.

One week to go…

Until I can stop annoying everyone with my excitement for the upcoming Super Smash Bros for 3DS. Then I can annoy everyone with my excitement for the upcoming Super Smash Bros for Wii U! Hooray! As a celebration of only a week left of waiting (which will go by very quickly thanks to Gauntlet and Hyrule Warriors), here are some fun images from the Smash Bros demo that I took with my phone. Because the demo doesn’t let you save screenshots like the full version will. I’m sure that all of my Facebook friends will be just delighted when I start flooding their feeds with Smash Bros screenshots again.

Smash Speculation: It’s over!

Hey so Super Smash Bros for 3DS has been out for a while (in Japan), and the whole of the roster is known to all. Even to me. Even though I tried to resist. Sometimes people just aren’t very good with their spoilertags. And by that, I mean they don’t realize that spoilertags exist for a reason. Whatever. It’s not a big deal.

I had originally planned to do a final entry in the Smash Speculation series this week, but I just don’t feel like bothering. For one, I’m just tired of doing these samey write-ups. That’s the big one. Sure, they allow me to be a little creative and indulge my fantasies, but each one reads the same and they aren’t fun anymore now that I know that there isn’t the slightest glimmer of hope of them coming true.

And that leads into the second reason I’m done early: not a single one of my predictions came true. Yes, there are a ton of new fighters in this edition of Smash, and most of them are wonderful and look like they’ll be a lot of fun to play, but it’s a little discouraging to be so far off-base. There are a couple questionable newcomers though, and I think that even my dumbest suggestions would be better than a clone of an already kinda lousy character.

OH WELL. I’m still incredibly excited to play the full game, and the demo has certainly made the wait easier. It’s also a much more effective outlet for my hype than these silly write-ups. Only nine more days to go…

For those interested, I was considering Shantae as today’s character. I know she isn’t a Nintendo character, but she’s mostly made her home on Nintendo systems. She would certainly be a more fun (albeit less iconic) third-party character than Sonic. I was playing as him in Brawl the other day, and man, Sonic is just no good.

Fourteen Stupid Ryan “Facts”

Ryan is a well-known stained glass craftsman.

Ryan has read the dictionary from cover to cover.

Ryan owns a pet coconut crab.

Ryan sells maps to the stars’ homes.

Ryan makes the world’s most delicious chocolate crepes.

Ryan is perfectly comfortable interacting with other people.

Ryan once ate seventeen whole pizzas in a single sitting.

Ryan helped to develop an effective anti-aging serum.

Ryan tames lions on the weekends.

Ryan is a visitor from beyond the stars.

Ryan is not in love with Anna Kendrick.

Ryan walks like an Egyptian.

Ryan gave up his rights to the Crown to pursue a career as a mime.

Ryan is simply a persona, TE is actually written by Jack McBrayer.

Super Smashing Robot

As a person who dumps most of his disposable income into Nintendo’s coffers, I’ve been playing the special early release of the Super Smash Bros for 3DS demo for a week, and now it’s available for everyone to download. It’s really great, and has done a wonderful job of making me even more excited for the full version of the game that comes out two weeks from today. Most of the demos I play just reinforce my assumptions that I can skip the game and not care, so that’s a nice change of pace.

smashmegaman

Playable Mega Man is the big draw, but he’s not the only interesting thing about the Smash demo. For instance, it’s full of new items and assist trophies. The Gust Jar, for example, is like an incredibly broken variation of the Fire Flower, and the stupid Color TV-Game 15 keeps showing up instead of actual interesting assist characters.

Mario, Link, and Pikachu are the three veterans who show up in the demo, and of the three of them, only Link feels any different. His dash attack is totally different, his Gale Boomerang feels more effective than usual, and he just feels faster overall. Mario still has FLUDD, and Pikachu is still adorable.

Newcomers Mega Man and Villager are the other two playable demo characters, and it turns out that both of them are a blast to play as. Mega Man is wonderful, though his lack of punching feels weird. But the buster makes for an excellent smash attack. Leaf Shield seems utterly useless. Metal Blade does what Metal Blade does, except for being the ultimate weapon for any situation. Crash Bomb would be great if it didn’t have the Gooey Bomb effect of passing over to other players; that drives me nuts.

Villager is so much more fun to play than I’d ever imagined. His attacks are all fun, and I love how he can stuff pretty much anything in his pocket for later use. Riding a gyroid across the stage is a hoot, but I like that you can opt not to ride it as well. His down smash, which takes four uses to actually pull off (plant a seed, water it, chop it twice), is amazing and deals incredible damage if you can actually land a hit with it. I’ll be surprised if Villager doesn’t end up as one of my favourite characters to play in these new games.

I don’t have many other thoughts about the demo that I need to share, but I think it’s important to note that I’ve spent hours playing it. I haven’t spent that much time on a demo since… I don’t know, the days of shareware? I don’t think I even played the Guitar Hero II demo this much, and I was almost as hyped for that as I am for Smash 4.